175322669
submission
schwit1 writes:
Lithium can now be extracted directly from previously untapped extreme environments.
The demand for lithium, essential for powering sustainable technologies, is rising quickly, yet current methods leave up to 75% of the world’s lithium-rich saltwater sources inaccessible.
With some predicting global lithium supply could fall short of demand as early as 2025, the innovative technology – EDTA-aided loose nanofiltration (EALNF) – sets a new standard in lithium processing. The technology uniquely extracts both lithium and magnesium simultaneously, unlike traditional methods that treat magnesium salts as waste, making it smarter, faster and more sustainable.
The work, co-led by Dr Zhikao Li, from the Monash Suzhou Research Institute and the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Professor Xiwang Zhang from the University of Queensland, promises to meet the surging demand for lithium and paves the way for more sustainable and efficient extraction practices.
Studies undertaken on brines from China’s Longmu Co Lake and Dongtai Lake, published in Nature Sustainability, demonstrate how the innovative method could efficiently extract lithium from low-grade brines with high magnesium content. At the heart of the innovation is a type of nanofiltration that uses a selective chelating agent to separate lithium from other minerals, especially magnesium, which is often present in brines and difficult to remove.
170961863
submission
bartoku writes:
I keep reading and hearing about calls for regulations on artificial intelligence, and it pisses me off.
I want more so called artificial intelligence, not less, and I do not want it to be regulated, filtered, restricted in anyway.
I searched Google and asked Chat-GPT why I should be afraid of Artificial Intelligence, and I did not get a single compelling answer.
I love that Deep Fakes are now available to the masses, and I stopped believing anything is real in 1997 after Hoffman and De Niro scared me in "Wag the Dog".
I love automation and I want more of it; robots please take my job.
I want robots to go fight wars for me instead of our sons.
Surveillance is already terrifying, adding "Artificial Intelligence" does not really make it that much more scary; we all need to just starve the system of our personal data anyway.
All the other arguments like crashing economic systems and discrimination just seemed to be based on stupid "Artificial Intelligence" hooked up to something it should not be; stupid in that it has the wrong answer or an answer "we" do not like.
Please scare me, or vote on your favorite sci-fi "Artificial Intelligence" scenario.
I will be being boring and hope we can have a "good" Matrix; one where I am rich and sexy.
I had BingBot rewrite my post, but I did not really feel if conveyed the correct tone:
What are the real dangers of artificial intelligence? I am not convinced by the common arguments against it, such as regulation, deep fakes, automation, war, surveillance, economic disruption, or discrimination. I think these are either exaggerated or solvable problems. I actually want more artificial intelligence in my life, not less. Can you give me some compelling reasons why I should be afraid of artificial intelligence? Or what are some sci-fi scenarios that you find plausible or interesting? Personally, I would like a Matrix-like simulation where I can live out my fantasies.
155817625
submission
smooth wombat writes:
Recently, Slashdot posted a story about a group trying to purchase one of the few copies of the U.S. Constitution in the public domain. The idea was to use pool donations by people via Ethereum to get the winning bid. Alas, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin outbid the group and took possession of the copy.
Now the group, ConsitutionDAO, is in the process of refunding the donations and the people getting their money back are finding it can be quite expensive. From the story:
That is because the Ethereum network records its transactions on the blockchain, the same basic technology idea that powers other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.
And like Bitcoin mining, it requires computational power to run.
"Gas" is the fee paid to those who run the computer systems to facilitate transactions. And it changes price based on supply and demand.
That means that at times, it can be much more expensive to make any kind of transaction, depending on how busy the Ethereum network is.
And the network has recently seen high usage — and high gas prices.
On its official Discord — the chat app which allows anyone to create rooms and discussion channels for enthusiasts on almost any topic — the group said it had 17,437 donors with a median donation of $206.26.
High gas fees mean that "small" donations could be severely hit by the transaction charge.
One user on the Discord said that in order to get $400 refunded, they would have to pay $168 in gas. Others complained of the fees being higher than the relatively small amount of their refund.
155328033
submission
DanDrollette writes:
One way to help eliminate carbon emissions and thereby fight global warming may be to exploit fusion, the energy source of the sun and stars.
155327733
submission
Tesseractic writes:
Chen Ly over at New Scientist reports on a Nature article on ion drives:
https://www.nature.com/article...
Dmytro Rafalskyi at ThrustMe, a space technology company based in France, and his colleagues have developed an electric propulsion system that uses iodine. They operated a small satellite and performed successful manoeuvres using the drive.
151607301
submission
Sauce Tin writes:
In a newspost, Jagex announced the shutdown of a community driven RuneScape HD graphics client. The announcement came at an inopportune time — the community client was prepped for release this week, had been announced years beforehand, with 2,000+ hours of effort of a single individual behind it. The effort had been noticed by Jagex, however no opposition from the company was made — until recently.
Thousands of players vented on the game's subreddit, ultimately reaching the top of r/all. Jagex has had a past of infuriating it's player base over the years, including the removal of free trade, PvP combat, and LGBT holiday content.
151436295
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
In a paper published Sept. 3 in Molecular Cell, [Stanley Qi, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University] and his collaborators announce what they believe is a major step forward for CRISPR: An efficient, multi-purpose, mini CRISPR system. Whereas the commonly used CRISPR systems—with names like Cas9 and Cas12a denoting various versions of CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins—are made of about 1000 to 1500 amino acids, their "CasMINI" has 529. The researchers confirmed in experiments that CasMINI could delete, activate and edit genetic code just like its beefier counterparts. Its smaller size means it should be easier to deliver into human cells and the human body, making it a potential tool for treating diverse ailments, including eye disease, organ degeneration and genetic diseases generally.Link to Original Source
151309683
submission
jaa101 writes:
Cloudflare chose the AMD 64-core EPYC 7713 over Intel's Ice Lake Xeon alternatives to save on power consumption for its next generation server design. "Although Intel's chips were able to compete with AMD in terms of raw performance, the power consumption was several hundred watts higher per server."
151238865
submission
sciencehabit writes:
Like the Greek god Chronos, a good number of stars devour their children. As many as one-third of them have swallowed one or more of their own planets, a new study suggests. The findings could help astronomers rule out stellar systems unlikely to contain Earth-like worlds.
The team investigated how often this happens by looking at 107 binary systems containing two Sun-like stars—akin to the fictional two-sunned world Tatooine in Star Wars. In 33 of these pairs, one of the companions showed elevated levels of iron compared with the other, a sign of planetary cannibalism. These same partners were also rich in lithium, giving further credence to the world-munching hypothesis. Although Sun-like stars are born with substantial amounts of lithium, they burn it away within the first 100 million years of their lives, so seeing it in the older stars in the study sample indicated it likely came from a planet.
Using these different lines of evidence, the team was able to model that between 20% and 35% of Sun-like stars consume a few Earths’ worth of their offspring. Such events could happen in systems where gravitational interactions among the planets would either fling one into the central star or bring it close enough for the star to slowly vaporize and devour it.
151235643
submission
Mr.Fork writes:
Livescience.com is reporting that new cracks have been found on the International Space Station. Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS discovered the fissures and there is concern that they could spread over time.
142110764
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
The Milky Way is surrounded by dozens of dwarf galaxies that are thought to be relics of the very first galaxies in the universe. Among the most primitive of these galactic fossils is Tucana II—an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy that is about 163,000 light years, from Earth.
MIT astrophysicists have detected stars at the edge of Tucana II, in a configuration that is surprisingly far from its center but nevertheless caught up in the tiny galaxy's gravitational pull. This is the first evidence that Tucana II hosts an extended dark matter halo—a region of gravitationally bound matter that the researchers calculated to be three to five times more massive than scientists had estimated. This discovery of far-flung stars in an ancient dwarf galaxy implies that the very first galaxies in the universe were also likely extended and more massive than previously thought.
The team used an imaging filter on the telescope to spot primitive, metal-poor stars beyond the galaxy's core. Analysis shows a kinematic connection, that these far-out stars move in lockstep with the inner stars, like bathwater going down the drain.
The results suggest that Tucana II must have an extended dark matter halo that is three to five times more massive than previously thought, in order for it to keep a gravitational hold on these far-off stars. "Without dark matter, galaxies would just fly apart," Chiti. says. "[Dark matter] is a crucial ingredient in making a galaxy and holding it together."
The team's results are the first evidence that an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy can harbor an extended dark matter halo. "This probably also means that the earliest galaxies formed in much larger dark matter halos than previously thought,"
